


Home Alone

by impossiblepluto



Series: have yourself a fluffy, whumpy christmas [17]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Gratuitous Temperature Taking, Hurt/Comfort, pilfering from home alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21902617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblepluto/pseuds/impossiblepluto
Summary: "This is Mac's house. He has to defend it."
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: have yourself a fluffy, whumpy christmas [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552330
Comments: 40
Kudos: 99





	Home Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to SabbyStarlight, 12percentplan and panchostokes (aka badwolfrun) for helping to brainstorm ideas.
> 
> And thank YOU for reading, this story and all the others! 
> 
> Did you know that the whole Home Alone soundtrack is on spotify? And Lindsey Sterling does a version of the main theme on her Warmer in the Winter album. It's amazing!

Jack is right. 

He’s been saying for years that Mac should have a home security system. Something high tech that sends alerts to Jack and the on-duty TAC team. If Jack had his way it would probably shoot intruders on sight, which might be a little extreme, but after Murdoc and The Ghost, maybe he isn’t wrong.

Mac’s heart is racing, pounding against the wall of his chest. 

He doesn’t know what woke him, wrapped up snug in his bed. Pulling the covers tighter around him to keep out the chill. He lies there in the dark for a moment, listening. Ready to turn over and go back to sleep when he sees shadows passing across the windows, fingers scraping against the panes, tapping on the glass, testing the defenses of the house.

Across the house, he hears the doorknob rattle. 

A car engine idling in the driveway.

Voices as they make their way around the perimeter. 

“Kid’s home alone,” a sleazy voice snickers in delight. The man is right. He shouldn’t know that Bozer is spending the night at Leanna’s and that except for him the house is empty.

“Kids are scared of the dark,” his partner answers.

“You’re scared of the dark,” the first voice says condescendingly. He’s heard these voices before. He recognizes them. Maybe a mission? An op? They found him. Followed him home. 

Mac’s breathing feels harsh, labored, he tries to slow it down. Take a deep breath through his nose and force it out through pursed lips. Fear trickles down his spine, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. 

He tugs himself out from under the tangle of blankets and stumbles from his bed, swaying dangerously and nearly toppling. His vision going dark at the sudden change in position, his hand grasps for his bedside table, holding himself upright on trembling legs. 

This is his house. He has to defend it. 

* * *

Jack pulls into the driveway, letting the engine of the GTO idle for a minute as he surveys the house. His eyes narrowing as his Mac-sense buzzes in the back of his brain. 

The same Mac-sense that woke him this morning, too early for a Saturday morning. And way too early after their middle of the night touchdown from a mission halfway around the world.

That was probably why Mac didn’t answer his crack of dawn text. Sent in an effort to ease the buzzing in his head that backfired spectacularly when Mac didn’t answer. 

The kid is probably sleeping. He should be sleeping after being run ragged this last week. Jetting across the globe, saving the world. 

Jack should be sleeping after the week he spent chasing after Mac, pulling his ass out of the fire. Literally. Catching him as the ground crumbled underneath his feet. Holding him in the car by his belt and sheer determination as he dangled half out of the window.

His eyes scan the house, curtains drawn tightly across windows, which all appeared closed and intact. The shadowy frame of the house outlined and illuminated by Christmas lights twinkling merrily in the darkness. 

Fog wafting in the chilly morning air. It’s so early there isn’t even a sliver of sunlight yet. Only a tease of impending dawn lights the sky. Just a hint, as black skies lighten to deep navy, casting deep shadows.

Mac will tease him mercilessly, tell him that a MacGyver-sense, like a Spider-sense, doesn’t exist, but Jack’s been right about this before. It’s that thought which had him out of bed, more alert than if he’d gotten a full eight hours of sleep, instead of the almost one hundred fifty minutes. It made him drive all the way across town, mentally shaking his head the whole way. Trying to talk himself off the Mac-is-in-trouble ledge he finds himself balancing precariously on.

It’s what has him getting out of the car now, and cautiously approaching the house, in a half-crouch as he moves up the front walk. Hand resting against the holster strapped onto his thigh. 

He hopes Mrs. Schwartz doesn’t see him creeping around and call the police. She only just stopped glaring at him when she saw him. It took years of Dalton-charm to win her over, as if it was him that routinely blew up the neighborhood and not her blond menace of a neighbor. But Mac can do no wrong in her eyes. It must be his troublemaking friend that has the power company completing maintenance so often on their street.

Water bubbles from the hose, laying in the grass, turning the front yard into a mud pit, and covering the walkway to the front door. Jack stops a few feet away from the rapidly expanding puddle. A strand of Christmas lights laying in the pool. 

Jack frowns as he traces the dangling burned out strand back up to the roof, still connected to the lights that frame the house. The lights that are twinkling. Jack squats at the edge of the puddle. With the back of his hand, he reaches out, skimming the surface of the water, jerking back reflexively, his hand tingling. The hair on his arm standing on end. 

The electrified lagoon is wide enough to keep him from the front door. A closer examination reveals that the wires at the end of the Christmas lights are stripped bare. Jack can almost hear the crackle of electricity.

He takes a few steps back scrutinizing the front of the house and rubbing a hand through his beard. Despite Mac’s penchant to improvise, reuse and recycle and try to fix Christmas light that everybody else except Jack’s nana would throw away, he is careful. Thorough. He wouldn’t use a stand with exposed wires unless he is positive he’d fixed them. Fixed them well enough that he believed no one could be hurt by them. And this looks deliberate.

“What the hell is going on, Mac?” 

Brow furrowed, Jack picks his way across the yard, giving the new addition to Mac’s landscaping a wide berth, keeping his feet out of the water, as he makes his way along the side of the house, inspecting the area as he goes. 

He ducks under the rail when he reached the back of the house, hopping up onto the deck. 

The board beneath his foot gives. Jack stumbles with a startled roar, his leg crashing through the deck as the plank launches upright, flipping up under his weight like a teeter-totter. He throws up a hand, scrambling, catching the board before it has a chance to connect with his face. 

Jack struggles with the damaged wood, pulling it out of the way. His foot falling through to the ground beneath the underdecking as he tries to gain leverage and pull himself out. He steps gingerly on his twisted ankle, grateful for his heavy boots that protected the joint. 

He examines the wood, pried completely loose from the framing.

He’s walked this deck a hundred times in the last few weeks and never noticed a loose floorboard. Mac would have noticed. 

Mac would have descended on the poor deck, taking it apart plank by plank, relishing the project. There is no way he’d let it fall into disrepair like this. 

Jack pulls out his cellphone, flicking on the flashlight, shining it along the path to the back door. He takes a cautious step, testing the next board before he puts his full weight on it. It holds. 

He takes another ginger step. This one holds too. 

Maybe he is overreacting. It was only one loose plank, he thinks as he tests a third step. This board flips up like the first as soon as Jack pushes against it. 

“Mac? Are you okay, bud?” Jack shakes his head as he avoids the loose board and tests the next one. 

“If you’re in there laughing at me…” He warns, squinting at the windows as he steps firmly. An explosive crack and a bang reverberate in the still morning air and Jack drops into a crouch, spinning and surveying. Eyes wide and pulse racing. 

The echoing pop fades away. The scent of gunpowder wafts from under the deck. Tendrils of smoke rise between the cracks. Firecrackers. Noisy. Annoying. Not necessarily dangerous. 

Jack picks his way across the deck, growing increasingly frustrated as his alternating steps set off more of the tiny explosives. 

When he reaches the doorframe Jack pauses, peering through the windows into the dark house. He runs his hands along the jamb, inspecting for wires. He’s not sure what he’s expecting but he also wasn’t expecting to find a boobytrapped deck this morning. 

Deciding it’s safe, he pulls the door open slowly, face screwed into a wince, waiting to be proven wrong. For a full-sized explosion or a trap door swing open beneath his feet. When nothing happens he crosses the threshold into the living room. Pausing before and after each step.

Mac’s living room is treacherous enough in full daylight. After what he just experienced on the deck, the living room could be a literal minefield.

A bright light shines in his face. He flinches against the blinding light before he’s plunged back into darkness. 

Darkness that lasts for a second before the entire room lights up again, long enough for Jack to slam his eyes closed against the abrasive light before they flicker out again. 

Brenda Lee croons at an ear-splitting decibel in time with the flashing lights. 

_ “You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear,   
_ _ voices singing let’s be jolly,  
d _ _ eck the halls with boughs of holly.” _

“Mac?” Jack yells to be heard over the din. “What the hell are you doin’ man? I don’t get it.” 

The lights strobe and flash in a staccato beat. The Christmas tree, the lamps, the lights hanging from the mantle, flicker and flare, like flashbulbs popping in his face. 

Jack stumbles through the room, feeling disoriented by the pandemonium. On. Off. On again. He squints and bites back a curse as his shin cracks against something heavy. Limping through the room, stumbling while crossing the threshold when something cold and sticky stretches across his face. Clinging to his skin. 

Plastic and suffocating. 

Jack frantically reaches for his face, scrambling and scraping to pull away the sheet of… saran wrap, stretched across the entryway of the living room. 

Jack pauses, mind racing as he starts putting pieces together. “Wait… I- home alone? You pretending to be Macaulay Culkin?” Jack snorts. “Yeah, okay Mac-caulay, I get it. Sort of. What brought this on, dude?” 

Like every attempt to communicate with his partner this morning, he’s met with silence. Not silence, Brenda Lee is still inviting him to rock around the Christmas tree, but Mac remains quiet. 

Stealthily, Jack moves through the kitchen, heading for the hallway and the bedrooms, on a renewed mission, and freezes when he sees the looming figure in the hallway. 

Even in the shadows, the weapon held in his arms is distinctive. 

Jack swings his phone up, pointing the flashlight towards the figure, revealing Mac’s polar bear. A bow stretched between his paws. Jack’s eyes widen at the taut bowstring, until he sees the notched arrow is made by Nerf. 

“Okay, kid, what are you up to?” He creeps carefully forward, watching his feet for any tripwires, for laser beams and motion sensors and who knows what else Mac might dream up. 

Just behind the bear, Jack can see the wire that will fire the nerf arrow. Easy enough to disarm. 

“I’m stealing your bow and arrow, kid,” Jack says, reaching around the bear. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but just know that I’ll be armed when I find ya. And I’m taking no prisoners.” 

The mechanism releases with a click. 

He flinches back, coughing as a puff of white powder bursts from the polar bear’s mouth, and into his face. He blinks furiously, eyes tearing up. His mind immediately rushing through decontamination procedures he knows by rote. Unknown powder expelled into his eyes, onto his skin, and he’s sure he inhaled some of it. 

He brushes powder from his face, rubbing it between his fingers, the texture is familiar, before placing one coated finger against his tongue. Matty is going to kill him if he’s wrong about this. He’ll never hear the end of it. They’ll give him a hard time right up until he dies from exposure to...

“Flour,” he breathes, still hacking. “Okay, that was a good one. A nice touch. You got me. I’ll give you that. I guess.” 

Nerf bowstring plucked between his fingers, he continues up the hallway. 

Jack hears it a second before it falls. Lightning reflexes are the only thing that keeps him from taking a faceful of a paint can pendulum.

"Hey! Look, I think I've been a good sport about this so far but that's a little close, hoss. All my teeth are my own and I'd like to keep them that way!"

He dodges to the other side of the hallway as another paint can swings.

"Did I do something to piss you off?" He takes a few more steps down the hall and pauses.

"Mac? Can you just answer me? I'll play your game, just let me know you're okay." Jack waits, listening intently. Not a peep comes from either bedroom at the end of the hall. He runs a hand through his hair. 

"I'm getting kind of worried here, bud." He hugs the wall. A step forward, then another. He pauses, listening again, eyes roving.

He looks between the two bedrooms, then chooses to ease open Mac’s door. The room is bathed in a soft light. 

“Mac?” Jack calls out in alarm, seeing his friend sagging against the desk, breathing heavily. 

Mac jumps at Jack’s voice, stumbling back, nearly collapsing when his back connects with the wall. 

Jack takes a step forward, dropping the Nerf toy with a clatter and reaching a hand out. 

"Stay back," Mac orders. His voice trembles. His eyes are wide, glassy. Filled with undisguised fear. 

“It’s me, hoss. What’s going on?”

“Stay back, stay back, stay back…” Mac mutters.

"Mac, bud, do you know who I am?"

Mac slowly shakes his head, wincing with the motion.

Jack’s heart stutters in his chest. He saw the kid hours ago. How did he miss this? He let Mac go home alone when he’s in such obvious distress. 

"Y-you look like Jack," he mumbles.

"That's cause I am," Jack slowly holds both hands up, palms facing Mac.

Mac shakes his head again. 

“Hey, bud, I think something’s wrong. Can I come closer so I can take a look at you?” Jack asks, eyes pleading, taking another small step forward. 

Mac licks his lips. Eyes flashing around the room before landing on Jack again. 

“Just look,” Jack says. “Won’t touch unless you tell me it’s okay?”

Slowly, Mac nods.

It takes everything in Jack not to run the rest of the way across the room. He moves as slowly before, telegraphing his every move before he makes it. Mac watches warily but doesn’t move away, doesn’t try to run. There’s nowhere for him to go, and Jack hasn’t decided what he would do if Mac tried running or fighting him. The kid needs help. 

Jack stops about a foot away from Mac. He peers into Mac’s blue eyes, expecting to see signs of a concussion that he somehow missed on the mission and the whole flight home. Instead, he sees Mac’s telltale signs of a fever. 

“Mac, kiddo, you look like you’re not feeling too well. I think you’re pretty sick,” Jack says slowly. “How are you feeling?”

Mac licks his lips, brow furrowing as if he thinks Jack is trying to trick him. “It’s hot.”

“I think you have a fever. Can I touch you?”

Mac hesitates, the stubborn part of Mac who says he’s fine and shrugs off Jack’s hands is at war with the Mac who seeks comfort from those same hands when spots of pink flame on his cheeks. He doesn’t respond, but Jack can see the moment his resolve to resist crumbles. 

Jack slowly raises a hand, laying it against Mac’s neck. He feels the warmth before he even touches skin. Mac’s pulse hammers against his fingers. He lays the back of his other hand against Mac’s forehead, heat prickling against his skin. 

Mac closes the gap between them, letting his head fall against Jack’s shoulder. Jack’s arm wraps around Mac’s back. His t-shirt damp and stiff with sweat. His other hand cards through Mac’s hair. Comforting and examining, he missed a fever earlier. He needs to be sure nothing else is attributing to Mac’s fever altered brain. 

“How long have you been feeling this poorly?”

Mac shrugs but doesn’t lift his head. Jack navigates them to Mac’s bed and gets him sitting on the edge. He brushes blond bangs back from Mac’s forehead. 

“You got any traps set in the bathroom?”

Mac frowns, then shakes his head. 

Jack nods, then squares his shoulders. He still moves slowly, cautiously into the ensuite. The shower curtain is missing and Jack is concerned about where he might find it, and full glasses on the vanity with empty bottles next to them and Jack is pretty sure he’ll have to call someone to dispose of them, but they aren’t bubbling or eating through the glass or countertop so that can wait for now. 

He ransacks the cabinet for the first aid kit for a thermometer and some tylenol, and his face contorts into a pained smile when he realizes he’ll have to go back through the house of horrors to get Mac something to drink. He can only hope that he sprung all the traps already. 

Mac has flopped over to lay his head on his pillow, feet still on the floor. He’s shivering and Jack pulls a blanket up over him while coaxing the thermometer into his mouth. 

Jack barely looks at the reading before he gathering up a protesting Mac. Sliding shoes onto his feet and a sweatshirt over his head, wrapping him in a blanket and manhandling him down the hallway.

“Oh, hell no, dude, you aren’t gonna boil your brain right before Christmas. Not on my watch.”

* * *

“You waking up there, kiddo?”

A soft groan escapes Mac’s chapped lips. Exhausted eyes blink owlishly, bright and glassy under heavy lids. 

Jack smooths a hand across Mac’s warm forehead, sweeping aside sweat soaked hair.

Slowly, Mac’s eyes track the room, his bedroom, before landing on Jack again. 

“You know who I am, bud?”

“Jack?” Mac mumbles voice confused and brow furrowing.

“You sound a little unsure there.”

Mac swallows, lips pulling into a grimace of discomfort. “What happened?”

“How about you try telling me?”

Mac closes his eyes. “I-- I don’t... “ he pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“I think you forgot to tell me you were feeling sick,” Jack scolds mildly. “Do you remember that?”

“Maybe,” Mac’s voice is soft.

“Here, open up,” Jack pokes the thermometer at Mac’s lips. 

With a miserable look, Mac complies, settling the probe under his tongue, waiting for it to beep. As soon as it does, Mac rolls over to go back to sleep.

“Not yet, dude, I need you to drink something for me, or we’re gonna need to go back to medical.”

“Back?” Mac asks as Jack helps him sit up and steady a glass of juice. 

“They gave you some fluids and some anti-pyrotechnics,” Jack smirks at Mac’s confused frown. “I think in this case, I’m still right. You were basically on fire.”

Mac grimaces while swallowing the juice. “I don’t remember going to medical.”

“You were pretty out of it. You’re still pretty out of it,” Jack says, setting the glass aside. “Go back to sleep, bud. We’ll talk more when you’re coherent.”

* * *

“Do you think it’s a good idea to let him watch Home Alone right now?” Riley asks, only half teasing as she glances into the living room where Mac is drowsing in front of the television.

“He woke up with a hankering to watch it,” Jack shrugs, pouring fresh juice into a glass. 

“I wonder why?” Bozer snorts, turning from the pot of soup he’s stirring on the stove. It was nerve-wracking to turn on the stove this morning. Two fire extinguishers on standby. “You sure we disarmed all the Mac-traps?” 

“About as sure as I can be without flat out asking him,” Jack says. “He doesn’t remember getting home from the mission or seeing the doctor. When I tried pressing, he didn’t know what I was talking about and I don’t want his overheated brain tying itself up in more knots worrying about what he did while feverish and delusional.”

“You’re pretty lucky, Jack. He could have really done some damage,” Riley says laying a hand on his arm.

“I think, deep down he knew he wasn’t really in trouble, otherwise I would have walked into a lot more trouble than some loose floorboards and firecrackers,” Jack says, checking to make sure Mac is still sleeping. “That’s why I don’t want anyone bringing this up until he’s feeling better. He’ll feel guilty, try to make up for it and throw himself into a relapse.” 

“He won’t hear about it from me,” Bozer promises and Riley nods. 

Jack gathers his supplies and moves toward the couch to roust Mac from his slumber. “Hey, kiddo,” he says softly, setting the soup and juice on the coffee table, and sitting next to them.

Mac opens tired eyes into thin slits and smiles at Jack. He always looks so young like this. He’s a little pale, but the fever isn’t blazing on his cheeks and his eyes are clearer than they’ve been. Still, Jack can’t stop himself from resting the back of his hand on Mac’s warm forehead, just to be sure, before ruffling a hand through his hair. 

“You’re missing out on most of the movie,” Jack teases.

“Feels like I just watched it,” Mac mumbles with a shrug. 

Jack studiously ignores Riley and Bozer in the kitchen. “Well, it’s probably been playing on TV nonstop since Thanksgiving.” He moves to sit next to Mac on the couch. 

Mac eats half the bowl of soup, and drink almost the full glass of juice, before settling back on the couch again watching Kevin best two bumbling crooks. 

“I wonder which of his plans would work,” Mac mumbles, leaning against Jack. Long slow blinks as his breathing deepens. 

Jack’s faces twitches. “I think you should wait til you’re feeling better before you try any replicating any of these traps.”


End file.
